On Inauguration Day, the EPA began a crackdown on "mountaintop" coal mines. The agency has scrutinized about 175 proposed mines, where peaks would be blasted off and valleys filled in with the rubble. It has signed off on only 48.

EPA officials, repeating a refrain from a year in which they also took on greenhouse gases and the seemingly eternal problems of the Chesapeake Bay, say they're only following the law. That, they say, means keeping poisonous things from the inside of a mountain out of streams on the surface.

But to many people in Appalachia, the orders coming out of Washington, especially one this month, have appeared contradictory and mysterious, signing off on some mines and blocking others. Environmentalists are unhappy because they fear federal officials are losing their nerve to take on the coal industry. The industry is unhappy because it thinks the administration is about to give in to the green crowd.

To each side, it looks like the EPA hasn't made up its mind.

People have chained themselves to mine equipment and shouted one another down. One scooted past state troopers to slap an environmentalist. The EPA finds itself in the middle of the most bitter environmental fight in America today.

"They didn't have a well-thought-out plan whenever they did this. And that's really been the basis of the uproar," said Randy Huffman, secretary of West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection, which EPA officials say has not been tough enough on mines in the past. Now, he said, confusion over the EPA's intentions "creates fear, and that brings out the worst in people."

The latest sign of that fear came Jan. 21, in an auditorium at the University of Charleston. The debate between a coal-company chief executive and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which attracted more than 1,000 people, had security reminiscent of a presidential visit.

Eight police officers were in the room, and two more with metal detectors guarded the door outside.

"The current EPA, which won't give a permit for anything for any reason ... they're the ones that's going to cost people their jobs and weaken homeland security," said Don Blankenship, chairman and CEO of Massey Energy based in Richmond, Va.

Last week, Gov. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, issued a plea for an end to intimidation of people fighting mountaintop mining. "We will not, in any way, shape or form in this state of West Virginia tolerate any violence against anyone on any side. If you're going to have the dialogue, have respect for each other," he said after a meeting with environmentalists and anti-mining activists.

Mountaintop mining, also called "mountaintop removal," is an exclusively Appalachian practice, dating to the 1970s but having gained momentum in the past 20 years. To get at coal seams that are too thin or too close to the surface to reach by tunneling, miners blast away the peak above the coal.

In most cases, the law requires that companies rebuild the mountain to its original shape. But some rubble usually is left in nearby valleys. There, scientists say, rainwater seeps over rocks that previously had been far underground. That can release trace amounts of salt and toxic metals, which can kill life in streams and cause health problems for people who drink the water.

This practice was deemed legal: From 2000 to 2008, federal and state authorities gave permission for 511 valley fills in West Virginia, according to the Government Accountability Office.

But Obama's EPA signaled a new attitude early by notifying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- which issues mine permits -- of its concerns about a mine in West Virginia. The 175 similar sites it has since scrutinized, including new applications, are spread across West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

At the EPA, officials say they're not out to stamp out mountaintop mining -- this month they approved a West Virginia mine permit after the company promised changes to reduce its effect on streams by nearly 50 percent.

But to many environmentalists and coal-industry leaders, the EPA's actions have seemed erratic and uncertain. It has criticized some mines and approved others, both sides say, without drawing a clear line between good and bad.

EPA official Peter Silva said there was no problem with the clarity of the EPA's message.

"The notion of 'clarity' invoked by some West Virginia officials and industry representatives has too often meant letting coal companies do as they please, with little or no consideration for the harmful impacts on Americans living in coal country," Silva said. EPA officials declined to comment on the record beyond that.

At the debate, neither side did anything worse than laugh at the other's speaker. But about an hour away, at a Massey Energy mine, sirens were in the woods.

Three activists had climbed into trees, said Mike Roselle, an activist with Climate Ground Zero, and Massey guards were using loud noises to stop them from sleeping and get them to come down.

On Wednesday, Roselle said a tree-sitter had descended because of gear that had become wet. The other two remained. He said he was pleased that the protest had caused headaches for Massey and the West Virginia government. "It absolutely worked," he said.

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